welcome to a special edition of "the lead." i'm jake tapper. the coronavirus pandemic is raging out of control, and for the second day in a row, the united states experienced a record breaking and heartbreaking number of daily deaths. 3,744 american souls taken yesterday because of covid breaking the horrific record set the day before. this as the rollout of the vaccine is proceeding slower than initially promised. president trump returned to the white house just moments ago earlier than expected after bailing on his new year's plans at mar-a-lago, but the virus killing the americans he swore in oath to protect is not the reason for his early return. instead, it is because republicans are preparing for another doomed last ditch effort to try to overturn the election results. again, this effort is guaranteed to fail, but it is where the president is focusing his energy in these last few days. cnn's kaitlan collins joins us

live from the white house. have there been any indications from the president or his team that they're even remotely focused on trying to get ahold of the pandemic right now? >> certainly not from the president or his political aides, jake. instead they've tried to really down play what we've seen happening with the rollout of these vaccines, and the distribution that we were told was going to go seamlessly and it was going to have a certain amount of americans, of course, vaccinated by today, and now we are seeing they are falling far short of that goal. if you talk to the operation warp speed officials they say they are working on it. they know they are behind where they said they were going to be, where multiple officials said they were going to be. the president's head just does not seem to be focused on this. he has been almost singularly focused on what is going to happen next week when congress does meet to certify biden's win. that played a big role in why the president did cut his trip short. he did not take our questions as he has not for several days. we haven't actually heard from the president in person, and instead we're relying on his

tweets. they give a pretty good indication of where the president is and what he is focused on right now, and it's not vaccines. >> republican senator ben sasse of nebraska is now slamming republicans for planning to go along with the president's plan to overturn the democracy, overturn the results of the election. what did sasse have to say? >> he's first saying he is not going to be participating in this, and he's encouraging other republicans not to do so because there his this belief that more republican senators will join josh hawley in his efforts to object to this. he says there's more than just these allegations, these concerns of voter fraud that republicans have. he says let's be clear about what is happening here. he said we have a bunch of ambitious politicians who think there's a quick way to tap into the president's populous base without doing any real long-term damage, he says but they're wrong, and this issue is bigger

than anyone's personal ambitions. he is basically directly saying that from josh hawley and the other republicans we could see support this, they're doing this because they have an eye on their own political careers not because they're worried about whether or not this election was free and fair. >> kaitlan collins at the white house, thank you so much and happy new year to you. in georgia today a final frenzy of campaigning five days before next week's crucial senate runoff election, cnn has learned republicans are concerned about democratic turnout and early voting. residents are facing long lines at the early voting polls. more than 2.8 million votes have been cast in these runoffs. georgia's lieutenant governor is slamming president trump and his allies over their efforts to prevent election certification next week for joe biden calling it damaging, calling it a side show. cnn's senior national correspondent is live for us at a republican get out the vote concert in gainesville, florida. what are we learning about republicans' concerns right now? >> we have been hearing these rumblings for some time and my colleague ryan nobles has spoken

to two different sources who has looked at gop data and analysis of early voting and the consensus is from those sources is that they are increasingly concerned about how democrats have been doing in early voting. we have seen these lines outside democratic strongholds and democratic districts, and republicans say now their data matches what they are seeing, and so they need a tremendous turnout on election day. is it achievable? well, those gop sources are saying, yes, they do believe this they can get that turnout on election day, and they believe one thing that will help, jake, is president trump showing up the day before the runoff election, jake. >> all right, one other thing, incumbent senator kelly loeffler who was appointed to that position and is now running to be elected to it, she was asked this morning about whether or not she supports senator josh hawley's efforts next week to challenge the election results. what did she have to say?

>> she was asked that question dire direct in a reporter gaggle. she said, quote, everything's on the table right now. that would seem to indicate that she supports it, but i want to caution you here. that's not a clear yes or no answer, having listened to a number of her speeches and heard her interact with the reporters, the senator does like these types of phrases that opens the window but isn't a clear yes or no. it certainly looks like she's considering it. not a clear yes or no. >> and president trump is heading to georgia on monday. he seems very focused on undoing the election results, his election results. he's been calling on top republican officials in georgia to resign governor kemp and others. does this complicate matters for loeffler or perdue or do they just need him to rally his bases? >> well, they're certainly going to be hitting the advil because it has been the ongoing headache for the gop leadership in this state having to do this high wire act where they fully

understand that one thing they need to do is to fall in line with the president. that has been the potent thing that we have seen among the base. it is something that works here in georgia. people show up to events like this wearing trump shirts, not loeffler and perdue shirts. that is something they know. the fact that the president is tweeting these things, asking the governor to step down, talking about the election, questioning the very machines that they need to be used in order to win these senate runoff seats, absolutely it's a complication, but they believe that the president, again, his power among the base is enough, jake. >> kyung lah in georgia. breaking news this afternoon as the united states breaks another daily death record from covid-19. more than 3,700 americans killed just yesterday. there are some new questions about how accurate rapid testing for covid really is. this according to a new study released this afternoon by the centers for disease control and

prevention. cnn's senior medical correspondent elizabeth cohen joins us now with those details. tell us about the study on rapid testing, what did the researchers have to say? >> jake, there's been so much excitement about rapid testing because it's rapid. the white house was excited about it. they've used it. other people have used it, but then there were concerns that these tests just weren't as accurate as the kind that take a few days to get results, and so the cdc went and did some really interesting research at two colleges in wisconsin. what they found is that for every five people who we know have covid, it's been confirmed through other testing, we know they have covid and they have symptoms, of those five people, one of them is going to get a negative result, so in other words, a false negative. all five of them, we know they have covid, and one of them is getting a negative result. that is not good because that person thinks, oh, i don't have covid, and then goes around and could possibly spread it. this is really important. it really draws some doubts about how useful these rapid

tests are. jake. >> elizabeth, we just learned there's a new covid variant, this one from south africa, and it could potentially be resistant to the vaccines that have already been developed. potentially i said, that's not definitive. what can you tell us about that? and how is this variant different from the one from the uk that we've seen pop up in colorado and california. >> i'm glad you emphasized the word potentially, and i'll tell you why. i talked to the virologist that discovered the south african variant, and he said, yes, potentially this could be a problem for the vaccine, but it might not be. the vaccine might work perfectly well. he said we need to study it, and as inundersta as i understand it, those studies are going on right now, trying to figure out what this means for the vaccine. this variant has quite a few a mutations in it. it has 22 mutations. the uk one only has 17, and a number of these 22 mutations they affect the spikes that are on top of the virus, when we've

seen that image now used everywhere. those little red spikes that's important, that's how the vaccine essentially does its work. when the mutations affect the spike, that gets everyone a little nervous. we need to study it, see what these mutations mean for the vaccine. >> thank you so much. happy new year to you. a vaccine mix-up, several people in one state given a coronavirus antibody treatment instead of being given a vaccine. after a lockdown of nearly a month a person is still dying of covid every ten minute thes in los angeles. the mayor of los angeles joins me next. in los angeles. the mayor of los angeles joins me next. sin los angeles. the mayor of los angeles joins me next. in los angeles. the mayor of los angeles joins me next. ♪

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bleak news in our health lead with the promise of a vaccine initially a light at the end of a dark tunnel of a year, major issues with distribution with comp calicating that optim. long lines of seniors in florida and texas and tennessee have been seen waiting for their shots, and there's a massive mix-up in west virginia that led to dozens of people getting coronavirus antibodies instead of the coronavirus vaccine. as cnn's sara murray now reports. >> see, it's been a very, very tough year. this is the worst that we've had literally in 102 years. >> reporter: as 2020 comes to a close, the coronavirus is still wreaking devastation across the country, and life saving vaccines are lagging behind. >> we would have liked to have seen it run smoothly and have 20 million doses into people today by the end of the 2020, which

was the projection. >> reporter: hailed as the light at the end of the tunnel, vaccines have been slow to make their way into americans' arms. less than 2.8 million shots have been administered, and less than 12.5 million doses distributed according to the cdc. far short of the trump administration's 20 million goal. >> obviously it didn't happen, and that's disappointing. >> reporter: as states struggle with distribution challenges. >> and we know that there's a moral imperative to get this out just as quickly as we can. >> reporter: arizona's governor ordered the state health department to accelerate vaccinations rather than leaving it to each county saying vaccines don't doed aany good s in a freezer. in west virginia 42 people were accidentally given antibody treatments instead of coronavirus vaccines. in wisconsin the fbi is investigating after someone intentionally removed 57 vaccine vials from a pharmacy freezer and 500 doses were discarded and

in states like florida and tennessee which opened vaccines to the elderly, lines are snaking around the block. the urgent need for vaccines evident as 2020 ends were more grim milestones. 3,744 people died of coronavirus wednesday, an all-time high, and 125,220 were hospitalized. it marks the third time the u.s. set a hospitalization record in december alone. many americans understandably eager to bid ado to 2020, but officials warn this isn't the time to pop over to times square to ring in the new year. >> don't go down there. watch from home. >> reporter: now obviously just because the year is changing that doesn't mean the pandemic is coming to an end, and in a stark reminder of this, we're seeing the l.a. county public health department send out these devastating tweets every ten minutes today commemorating people who have died and urging people to continue to stay home. in that county someone is dying

every ten minutes. the daily case counts are ten times higher than they were two months ago. >> let's stick with los angeles because the situation in los angeles could not be more dire surpassing 10,000 deaths today according to the l.a. times. bodies are literally piling up in morgues. the national guard has been called in to l.a. to move these bodies to storage facilities. people are being left to die in hospital hallways because there are no beds left the l.a. times reports, and with so many front line workers out sick with covid themselves, these overcrowded hospitals are severely understaffed. los angeles mayor eric garcetti joins me now. the l.a. times drips of hospitals right now sounds practically apocalyptic. is it accurate to what you've seen, and is the situation getting better or worse? >> well, jake, this is what we all feared. here in los angeles, one of the most vulnerable cities in the country, the most densely populated metro area. we are at our capacity, and while we're seeing the caseload begin to level off, we know that

two or three weeks of more hospitalizations and more deaths that follow last week and the week before caseload, we are still going to have our toughest and darkest days. our hospitals are doing miraculous work. our health care workers are stretched to the limit taking shift after shift after shift. we learned a lot, prepared a lot, have equipment, have a lot of the spaces now available, but we don't have the people, and that is what's devastating us. it's not just for covid-19. i remind people other accidents happen. people need emergency rooms for car accidents, things we don't expect, heart attacks, and so this is going to have an effect not just on people with covid-19 but on the health of this entire city. that's why it's so critical we change our behavior. everybody's doing something but everybody can do more. >> so in los angeles county one person is dying of covid every ten minutes. you say people need to change their behavior. your city's been in lockdown for nearly a month. both you and governor newsom

have been imposing restrictions since the beginning of this pandemic. what's going on? are people not adhering to them? are the restrictions you're imposing not the right ones? >> no, you know, 95% of people with this virus can do the right thing and it's still dangerous. if 80% of people are doing the right thing it can be disastrous. i was talking to the head of our red cross here who came from florida, she said if people wear masks here i see much more adherence than other places i've been, but we see in a dense environment all it takes is one household mixing with another. people thinking maybe i'm the exception or it's a close friend and i've got my window open. it will just be for an hour at christmastime, we have to make a new year's resolution to stay home for new year's eve and to continue doing the hard work for this next two or three weeks to make sure we can get through this surge and not see a second one from christmas and a third one from new year's. if we can do that, we can hang on. we can save a lot of people's lives, and we can make sure that we come out of this to a

brighter day. >> according to county officials between 20 to 40% of front line workers in l.a. county are refusing to take the vaccine. why? and what's being done to convince them that they need to get vaccinated? >> that was in some areas, i think, the number is better in the city of los angeles. for instance, our firefighters we had a survey, i was out with my firefighters getting them vaccinated over 90% of them said they're going to get the vaccine, and as soon as they talked to a buddy who got it, know that there's a sore arm, maybe a little bit of a headache to treat with tylenol, we're seeing people come in record numbers. so i think we have to build that trust, especially where we see the federal government that's played politics with so much of this crisis, there is a lot of mistrust and distrust out there. i do believe we'll be able to, and we're sprinting on our vaccines. as quick as they come in, we are putting them in the arms of our medical workers, firefighters, paramedics and of course now we're surging them into our senior nursing facilities, our skilled nursing facilities.

we're not finding as much in the city. i think there's a lot of folks out there who have question marks simply because there hasn't been unified messaging on this. i can't wait to get the vaccine when it's my turn. i'm not going to be jumping the line. i certainly will do that and i hope all of us will so we can get back our economy and city to normal. >> tell us more about the vaccine distribution, and if you have any numbers, how many doses have come in? how many have gone into arms? are you getting everything you need at the rate at least that is reasonable to expect at this point? >> well, i would love to have a lot more, jake, and i would say one thing to the federal government, to our vaccine manufacturers, send more to los angeles. we're getting them in arms as quickly as they arrive. over 90,000 first doses just in this last week and a half. we had hoped to see under the 20 million goal more like 200,000, so this is less than-of what we had hoped and what we were told. that's why leadership it's so important not to set false expectations when people are bragging about sprinting ahead,

be realistic but we have set up the most amazing system for the distribution, especially in communities that are overlooked. for instance, in three poorer communities of clolor we set up vaccine distributions for health care workers that might not work in those big hospitals taking care of their personnel so in their neighborhood, they can make sure themselves, their patients and their families are protected as well. >> the variant of covid initially reported in the uk, the one that is more easily transmissible was just discovered in san diego south of you as you know, has l.a. county reported any cases of this strain, and how concerned are you about this variant? >> not yet, although our labs are analyzing a lot of strains out there. it certainly isn't dominant or widespread here, but it's reasonable to assume somebody here probably has it if it's down in san diego, and it's of great concern. while it doesn't make the virus more vicious, it spreads even more quickly which means trying to get that curve bent down is even more difficult. this really is a moment when we all have to do something more,

stay home, make sure we're not mixing our households, doing all those things, even in a dense household if somebody is positive in your home and they're isolating, everybody should wear a mask at home, too, for that period of time. this is something that is ravaged in the community, and a new strain would certainly make it worse. right now we can still hang on. i believe where we're at right now with equipment, with space, but we're running short on some oxygen and certainly running short on people, and so this strain would be very dangerous to us. >> mayor eric garcetti, thanks so much, our best wishes to you and the people of los angeles. >> thank you, sending you all strength and love for this new year. >> yeah. breaking news on the race in georgia, days before the election a candidate is going to quarantine. stay with us. so that's what we give you. introducing career services for life. learn more at phoenix.edu

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this is cnn breaking news. >> and we have some breaking news for you in our politics lead, georgia senator david perdue's campaign just announce he is now quarantined just days before his runoff election after learning that he came into close contact with somebody who had tested positive for the coronavirus. let's go back to cnn's kyung lah who's live for us in gainesville, georgia where perdue had been scheduled to appear. do we know if the senator has been tested for covid-19 today? >> he has been tested. that we got in the statement

released by the perdue campaign just a short time ago, and that he and his wife have both tested negative, but now having seen this repeatedly, we understand that if you do have close contact with someone you have to get tested over a number of days because it may not show up on that first test. so from what we understand here, if you were attending this event and this was scheduled to be a joint event with senator perdue and senator kelly loeffler ending out the year, trying to present a united front, encouraging republicans to go out and vote in these senate runoffs, there's no sign that there's anything wrong. people are listening to country music. they are enjoying themselves. my producer ken barryman, i'm going to look to my left, she was actually notifying some members of the setup team here that the senator wasn't going to be showing up. i also spoke to a member of the senator's staff just a few hours ago when we arrived here, the field director, and there was no

sign that anything was off. you can see that there are signs behind me that there is a crowd. people are milling around with really no concern. one thing i do want to point out, though, is the way that the republicans and, you know, senator perdue is among this group, how they've been campaigning on the trail has been different than the way we've seen other candidates behaving on the trail. two days ago d.j. judd was at a senator perdue event two days ago. it was indoors. it was a small closed area, a smaller closed area. the senator at times wore a mask, and then when he spoke and when he took pictures and when he was talking in close proximity to a number of people, he was not wearing a mask. so these are things we're seeing on the trail, jake, and now all of those people who have had close contact with the senator certainly have to think about what their next steps are.

jake. >> all right, kyung lah we certainly wish the best to senator perdue and his family. let's discuss with our panel, amanda carpenter, senator perdue's quarantine comes at an awkward time for his race. potentially do you think it could affect the outcome? >> there's a rally coming up in georgia right before election day, and so if he's not present, obviously that would be awkward, but honestly, jake, i don't know if it'd be any more awkward than the president himself contracting coronavirus and having to be airlifted to walter reed. it is truly stunning to me that so many candidates have -- they acted like nothing is wrong. there's a lot we don't know about this virus. we do know that you can't gather with crowds indoors without a mask. that's just basic 101, but yet, if you go on these candidates' twitter or instagram, you can see picture after picture after picture of people inside without masks taking selfies, eating and

acting like nothing's wrong, and so you know, i wish senator perdue the best, but please reflect upon that fact while you're in quarantine. >> hilary rosen, i mean, we just lost a republican congressman-elect from louisiana who was only 41 years old with no comorbidities, no pre-existing conditions. we just lost him this week. we're losing in the united states close to 4,000 americans a day. meanwhile, the vaccination program is not going as expected as promised, and our president and frankly the ruling party, the republicans seem primarily focused on stealing the election from joe biden. it is really an awful moment for this country. >> and let's -- look, let's be clear about this. the congressman who unfortunately lost his life was seen campaigning and interacting without a mask many, many times. senator perdue the same. these are republican candidates

campaigning without a mask. the democrats are not doing that. you know, reverend warnock and jon ossoff in georgia are being very, very careful. they're being careful about not having their people campaign out there in reckless ways on their behalf. they're sending the right signal. that's what leaders do. the thing that is so frustrating about the spread of this disease is that we have a president who is so focused, as you said, on, you know, trying to undo a democratically won election and not focused on keeping americans safe, and that is just, you know, it's a crime that's going to end on january 20th. it can't come soon enough. this is just tragic as far as i'm concerned. >> amanda, we learned yesterday that republican senator john hawley of missouri will join with house republicans next wednesday, not all of them, but many of them, perhaps even a majority of them, to object to the electoral college results,

which have been certified and signed off on. today hawley sent out a fund-raising email trying to raise money off of that promise in which he is siding with these election truthers, these conspiracy theorists. what is this about in your view? is it about loyalty to trump? is it just plain ambition? is it grift? what's your view? >> it's ambition, but i mean, it comes down to what a lot of the republican base has been led to believe. i mean, this is a donald trump problem, but a lot of his voters believe the election was stolen, and so they're choosing to engage in this make believe story, and here's what's particularly bothersome about this. hawley's smart enough -- he's not saying there's some algorithm that flipped the election. he is pretending like that he has some concerns about voter

irregulari irregularity, and there's just something that needs to be looked into, even though the department of justice has found nothing. the supreme court refused to hear the cases and all of these republican states certified the election. all these people that know better and are trying to find some way to justify what trump has led his voters to believe are engaging in this myth that something was wrong with the election, and you can see this up and down by people who know better. there's only one thing that was irregular about this election. more people than ever voted. a lot of them used mail-in ballots. that was a new thing that happened, and what this is going to ricochet around to is that they're going to try to restrict those options to say, oh, well, we just want people to be able to vote this one way again. so that's where this is going, and you can see how trump is trying to get a victory out of this by saying we just need another voter commissioned something, but anyone who buys into that is buying into this made up, make believe story that is a lie. >> amanda carpenter, and hilary

rosen, thanks to both of you. appreciate it. cases of a more infectious strain of covid are growing in the u.s., why that could be very bad news for any plans to reopen schools. hey, i just got a text from my sister.

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in our health lead, we are learning more about the california man who tested positive for that uk strain of covid-19. we know that he's 30 years old. he lives in san diego, has no

travel history and has had very few social interactions during the potentially contagious period. we also know that a second suspected case of this uk variant is being monitored in colorado. all of this comes as a new study finds that not only is the variant more transmissible, it's also more prevalent in individuals who are 20 years old and younger. and joining me now cnn medical analyst dr. megan ranny, also an emergency physician at brown university. when you hear that this man in california does not have much of a travel history and has had few social interactions but still contracted the variant, what does that tell you if anything? >> it leaves a lot of questions unanswered, but my biggest concern about that story, jake, is that it means that this virus is being transmitted through the community already. you know, we know that it was first found in the uk in late september. many of us suspected it was here in the u.s. already, but if this guy who wasn't going out and

doing much caught it, it means it's out there probably in many states across the united states. >> so this does increase your concerns about the virus and the pandemic and where we're headed. >> very much so. i mean, this virus is -- this new strain is up to 70% more transmissible. the good news is it doesn't seem to be more dangerous, but if we see a lot more people catching it, if we see more super spreader events happening, we already have hospitals that are overwhelmed. we already have hospitals that are on the breaking point. we already have almost 4,000 deaths a day. this bodes so poorly for the next couple of months in the united states until we can successfully get more people vaccinated. >> you know, the moment that we heard about the individual in colorado showing up and having this uk variant that we had just learned about maybe a couple of days before, it reminded me of the moment earlier this year when an individual in a nursing home outside kansas city was discovered to have the virus, and i think he, in fact, died of

the virus. this was very early on. i was talking with my fellow journalists here at cnn, and i said if it's in this gentleman in a nursing home outside of kansas city has this, this is very early on when it was only showing up in the coasts, then it really must be everywhere, and i wonder if that's what you think about this? >> yeah, that's exactly it, and it's funny, folks asked me a week or two ago, should we shut down flights to the uk, and my response was it's too late, right? it's already here. it's the same thing. even if you look at that thunurg home case in washington, that seminole case we identified in the u.s., we now know it had been up and down california, washington state for months, ditto with the east coast breakouts. i agree completely. it is here already. unfortunately right now, the only thing we have to protect ourselves are those same strategies we've been urging since the beginning, right? it's mask up. avoid indoor gatherings. make sure that you isolate if you have symptoms. the things we haven't been doing a great job at already.

>> what do we know about how transmissible this is among children? and the reason i ask that is because there is this move to reopen schools because the variant that we have been dealing with in the united states doesn't seem to spread all that much among children, especially children under 12. does this uk strain throw a wrench in that? >> yeah, it definitely gives me pause. you know, there was a recent cdc publication that confirmed what many of us have been saying, exactly as you just said. the viru virus does not seem to spread in schools where there is masking. it spreads outside of school where kids are doing sports or in social activities but this new strain may change everything, and i think we're going to be waiting for the imperial college in london and for their larger consortium that's been looking at the genetics to do more detailed analyses of who exactly it's more prevalent in. under 20 is a pretty big group

is that age 18 to 20 or the younger kids that so far have not been transmitting the virus here in the united states? >> we learned today that a different variation of covid, one found in south africa is also spreading quickly. the researchers who discovered it said that he didn't know if the current vaccines will be effective against it. that does not mean that they won't be, just that it's a question mark. how worried are you about that? >> so i'm not super worried about the current vaccines not working for the current new mutations. the thing that concerns me more is that we're finding more and more of these significant mutations, south africa, uk, others, and that that has a bag prognostic factor for the success of the vaccine long-term. all along we've questioned is a single vaccine going to work forever, like with measles or is it going to be more like the flu where we have to get yearly boosters and change the vaccine from year to year? typically coronaviruses don't mutate that quickly which gave us hope, but these quick changes that we're seeing make me worried that we're going to have to get revaccinated in one or

two years. >> all right, dr. megan ranny, thank you so much for joining us today. we appreciate it. coming up next, the youngest person elected to congress in generations is with us. next. arning, and concentration. try our new gummies for 30 days and see the difference. ♪and if we win, we get to tell you how liberty mutual customizes car insurance

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in our politics lead today, both democrats and republicans seem to be doing everything they can to get out the all-important youth vote, including using the youngest person elected to congress in recent memory. diane gallagher caught up with republican congressman-elect

madison cawthorne. >> the youngest person elected to congress in modern history. the night he won he celebrated on twitter with three words, which some thought was a dig at his democratic opponent. >> you tweeted -- >> oh, not the most congressional thing i've ever done. >> cry more lib. why did you do that? >> it was definitely not targeted at my opponent, mo davis, who won a very tough campaign. it was more at this culture, the extremes on both ends. >> first member of congress born in the 1990s, he has taken his party by storm. >> i represent the new face of the republican party. >> wrapped in a message of youth, faith and overcoming adversity. the now 25-year-old has used a wheelchair since a car accident in 2014 left him partially paralyzed. >> i know what it is to feel

significant amounts of pain and to feel left behind society and that's an interesting perspective to come in to as a conservative and with conservative values. >> cawthorn credits alexandria ocasio-cortez with inspiring him to run for congress. >> although i disagree with her on policy positions, she set an example that you can get involved as a young person in your 20s to make a difference in your country. >> reporter: after his shocking win in a crowded 11th district primary, the country and the president started quickly showcasing the north carolina native. where is madison? madison cawthorn, a real star. you'll be a star of the party. >> be a radical for our republic, for which i stand. >> stumping for gop candidates in georgia. but it was a series of scandals that helped propel the

relatively unknown candidate to the national stage. >> i'm definitely not a naughzi i'm not a white supremacist. >> adolf hitler's vacation home in germany, eagle nest where he refers to hitler as the fuehrer. >> i was unaware using a certain term to describe hitler was offensive to the jewish community. >> pointing out that he called him a supreme evil in the post. >> my fiance is a biracial young woman. i'm going to have biracial children. >> he says in his conservative agenda, does see potential for compromise on democrats with broadband expansion, opioids. >> i believe you can love god, love guns and hate greenhouse gases. >> reporter: cawthorn told cnn he suspected fraud in the

presidential election but did acknowledge that trump's legal team had yet to prove it. >> if joe biden is our president and i was a betting man, i would probably say he will be. >> reporter: two days later at a gathering of young conservatives. >> i will be contesting the election. >> reporter: not ready to completely accept reality, but open to what's next. >> i look forward to working with him and i think we can modernize our country together. >> reporter: we barely scratched the surface on some of the controversy surrounding cawthorn but it's no secret his star on the rise within the party. not everyone is a fan of his style, though. take illinois republican congressman kensinger, tweeting that video of cawthorn saying he was going to object to the election. jake, cawthorn told me he

expects to have pushback within his party. to that he said he is grateful that his spine is reinforced with titanium. did he dislike the decorations that much? president trump leaves the florida before the new year's eve party tonight. could a wrecking ball be returning to washington? robinhood believes now is the time to do money.

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welcome to a special edition of "the lead." i'm jake tapper on this last day of 2020. we are ending this year with some absolutely horrific new records when it comes to the coronavirus pandemic. 3,744 americans died just

yesterday from covid-19. breaking the tragic record set the day before. and more than 125,000 people are currently hospitalized with the virus in the u.s. president trump canceled his plans to attend a new year's eve party at mar-a-lago, florida, returning to the white house moments ago. his change in plans is not because he was concerned about the pandemic or how the administration is behind schedule when it comes to the covid vaccine. it is because he is preparing for one last-ditch effort to overturn the election results. one that is doomed to fail. it will happen next week when congress meets to certify joe biden's electoral college win on wednesday. minutes ago, two house republicans told me that they expect at least 140 republican members of the house to vote against counting the electoral votes for joe biden. now there's absolutely no way this effort to undo the democratic free and fair